What Loosens

The blade dips lower with each rotation,

a stutter in the circular motion.

Tick. Tick. The sound of the vibration

is patient, mechanical, a devotion

to breaking itself one breath at a time.

I could call the landlord. I could climb

the ladder, find the bolt, make it tight.

Instead I lie here in the heat and light,

listening to the rhythm of decay.

The fan wobbles through another day.

I am too tired. I am too hot.

I am too practiced at letting what

deteriorates continue its slow fall,

at accepting the small failures, all

of them, as they come and come again.

Each time it seems the blade might spin

directly through the ceiling, crash,

destroy the plaster. Each time the bash

never comes. Each time I think:

this is how we learn to live on the brink—

with the constant threat of collapse,

just bearable enough to not perhaps

do anything at all. To let the loose

bolt stay loose. To choose

not to choose. To listen

as the wobble becomes the mission,

the sound becomes the only proof

that something here is coming loose.